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Casual games are no doubt the heart of magic’s longevity. Magic has lasted for as longs as it has, and will continue to flourish, mainly because of its unique gaming experience. When you sit down for a game of Magic, anything can happen. At the same time, casual games are one of the most complex components of playing Magic.

Like I said last week, you have to be conscious of exactly why you’re constructing your deck. Even being aware of what your deck is supposed to do, however, isn’t enough. If you come up with a perfect little trick that you can pull off repeatedly, one of two things will happen.

First, the people you play with will begin to anticipate your next move simply by what deck you’ve chosen. I know from firsthand observation that the first player to play a sliver card is usually a dead player, unless the group deems the sliver player to be sufficiently neutered.

Second, you actually manage to continue to make the deck work, and it gets old. If it doesn’t get old for you (and it will, eventually,) it will get old for your opponents. While you might not care as much about their opinions of you and your decks as you do for your own skills, it’s still worth considering. Politics DO exist in casual games- especially in multiplayer- and having everyone else against you is not winning odds.

So what do you do? Again, two responses (since I’m not going to count just giving up playing as a possible response.)

First, you continuously think up new deck ideas and put them into practice. This is a good habit to get into for several reasons- it promotes creativity, keeps the opponents guessing, and strengthens the deckbuilder’s skills at recognizing card combinations and strengths- but there is one downside. Building multiple decks of different ideas requires a substantially established collection, which is a big downside for any new player.

Second, you build decks that are as flexible as possible. Depending on the card pool, this can be more difficult at some times than others, but we live in very flexible times. Making an “imprint” themed deck from Mirrodin with multiple subjects for imprint on lenses, scepters, shields, and golems is just one recent idea.

As for myself, I took a step back from the newest set and returned to the Onslaught

So remember, the next time you consider bringing out the old tried-and-true deck everyone’s seen twice today already, think about building something with a little bit of a fresh feel to it. Just because a deck can be consistent for you doesn’t mean that it has to be for everyone else.

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